In order to sustain communicative behaviors, some approaches are essential. Continuous schedule of reinforcement, Intermittent and Fixed ratio Schedule.

1. Strengthening and sustaining communicative
behaviors/target behavior using:
❖ Continuous Schedule
❖ Intermittent schedule
❖ Fixed ratio schedule
Presented by Wambui Mbugua

2. What are communicative behaviours?
According to Sternin (1989) communicative behaviors are a set of
communicative norms and traditions that are generally accepted by a
group of people. To put it in another way, the communicative
behavior of an individual (or a group of individuals) involves a
linguistic aspect (choice of words, syntax, tone of voice, accent, etc.)
and a pragmatic aspect (communicative tactics, etiquette rules, non-
verbal communication, etc.), both aspects being interconnected and
interdependent.

3. Elements of communicative behaviors
● Vocalics
● Proxemics
● Artifacts
● Movements
● Chronemics (transitions)
● Our five senses

4. Vocalics
The use of volume, tone, rate, pitch, and quality of voice to give dimension and meaning to words. This is also
referred to as paralanguage as the voice ‘surrounds’ the words. For example you raise your pitch at the end of
a sentence to indicate that you have completed a thought.
Proxemics
This is the use of space to communicate. For example if someone comes to sit next to you in the library when
the whole table is empty it can communicate a range of things about relations/interests/personality types.
Artifacts
Artifacts are those items, such as jewelry, clothing or a vehicle that may communicate something about the
type of person you are. If a male wears extremely tight pants or shaves his eyebrows, it may communicate
something about him to others.

5. Movement
This includes posture, gestures, facial expressions and eye contact. Waving, smiling, gazing at someone, or slumping at
your desk, are all instances of movement. Movement communicates messages.
Chronemics
The way you use time, or chronemics, can communicate attitude or status. For instance, one may show/communicate
respect by being early for an appointment or job interview. Conversely, lack of respect may be communicated by turning
up half-an-hour late for a class.
Senses
Finally, messages can be sent through the five senses – taste, touch, smell, sight and hear

7. Continuous schedule
This is a schedule of reinforcement, in which reinforcement is delivered on a continuous
basis, that is each time a learner produces the desired he/she immediately receives a
reinforcement.
It leads to a high rate of response as there is a lot of reinforcement. This high rate in
response results in an increased number of trials/ opportunities for the learner to perform.
CRF schedules are most useful when students are learning new behaviors. For instance as a
therapist would use CRF to teach tacting of emotions

8. CRF schedule can also be used when the target behavior initially has a very low frequency.
In a classroom setting you may have a learner who has a habit of blurting out instead of
raising his/her hand so as to get a chance to either ask or respond to a question, thus a
therapist could apply CRF in ensuring that every time the learner raises his/her had they get
an opportunity to comment.
Though CRF is very effective during the early stages of any reinforcement systems there are
certain challenges with this schedule.
● A learner whose behavior is on a CRF schedule may become satiated on the
reinforcement.
● Continuous delivery of reinforces may lead to the accusations therapists are leading
students to expect some type of reinforcement
● CRF schedules are therefore no the most effective way to maintain a behavior
following its initial acquisition.

9. After a behaviour has been acquired or its frequency increased by the CRF schedule a
therapist may terminate the intervention program. This rapid transfer of continuous
reinforcement to no reinforcement would result to rapid loss of the behavior.
Whereas this rapid loss of behaviour when a reinforcement is withheld is known as
extinction.
However , use of a variety of less than continuous schedules may solve the problems
caused by the CRF schedule beyond the point of effectiveness.

10. II) intermittent schedules
These are reinforcement schedules that entail the reinforcement of some but not all
appropriate responses. Since each occurrence of the behavior is not reinforced satiation
effects are avoided.
Behavior intermittently reinforced by a partial schedule is usually stronger. It is more
resistant to extinction. Therefore, after a new behavior is learned using a continuous
schedule, an intermittent schedule is often applied to maintain or strengthen it.
This schedules require greater numbers of correct responses for reinforcement, thus the
learner learns to delay gratification and maintain appropriate behaviors for longer periods of
time.
The four major types of intermittent schedules commonly used are based on two different
dimensions – time elapsed (interval) or the number of responses made (ratio). Each
dimension can be categorized into either fixed or variable.

11. The four resulting intermittent reinforcement schedules are:
● Fixed ratio schedule (FR)
● Variable ratio schedule (VR)
● Fixed interval schedule (FI)
● Variable interval schedule (VI)

12. Ratio Schedules
Under ratio schedule, the number of times a target behaviour occurs determines the timing
of the reinforcer delivery .
➔ Fixed -ratio schedule (FR)
In FR the learner is reinforced on completion of specified number of correct responses. For
instance when teaching the skill to start a conversation , and the behaviour is on FR3
schedule then the learner would be reinforced immediately following the third occurrence of
the target behaviour.
Behaviors placed in FR schedules have particular characteristics;
Fixed ratio schedules produce high rates of response until a reward is received, which
is then followed by a pause in the behavior also known as post reinforcement pause .
This then causes inconsistencies in the fluency of the behaviour

13. The problems of fluency and post reinforcement pause by the
transition to a variable -ratio schedule. Under VR the target
response is reinforced on the average of a specified number of
correct responses.
Due to the unpredictability of the reinforcement delivery on the VR
schedule, moderate and consistent correct rate of response is
maintained. With little or no post reinforcement pausing.

14. “The probability of reinforcement at any moment
remains essentially constant and the ‘student’ adjusts
by holding to a constant rate” (Skinner,1953)

15. References
Schoenfeld W, Cumming W, Hearst E. ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
Fennell, B., & Dillenburger, K. (2018). Applied behaviour analysis: What do teachers
of students with autism spectrum disorder know. International Journal of Educational
Research, 87, 110-118.
Sternina, M., & Sternin, I. A. (2003). Russian and American communicative behavior
(p. 95). Istoki Publishing House.
https://youtu.be/o0PeUl2UzZA and https://youtu.be/GLx5yl0sxeM (Schedules of
reinforcement)
https://youtu.be/Dlsabi8GpLU (CRF)